91 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-7-20”

  5. Morning! Pretty birds in that tree….
    We have one alarm that resets automatically. Everything else we must remember how to reset. The worst is the car…we can never recall how we reset the car clock…why is that?!

    Liked by 2 people

  7. NancyJ. It’s because you only do it twice a year and you set so many other things that the procedure is forgotten or mixed up.’
    I set the clock on the oven. But. Before I finished, I noticed that I was baking something. So? I had to redo it. Such a simple thing can be tricky.

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  8. Rk were you in the ER? Are you seeing panic over this new virus? I guess we have a confirmed case in ElPaso county now…I hear Costco is out of toilet paper , alcohol, and antibacterial gel and wipes now…

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Robins would have a couple of feet of snow to walk on here. Maybe lots of snow fleas to eat, but not sure what else. It will be awhile before they would find worms. Today, though, a whole lot of melting will be going on for us. Tomorrow 50 degrees and everyone will be delirious with joy. A slower melt will be appreciated by everyone down stream.

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  10. Kathaleena, robins tend to eat berries and seeds in winter. If they can’t find them, they go to where they can. Here we have them all winter because there are lots of berries. Farther north a few of them would hang around–you might see a flock of a dozen if you went to the hospital to see someone in midwinter, because they hospital had trees with berries–but there weren’t as many as in spring and summer.

    Like

  12. I found this on an old email this a.m. and it made me smile. I do not know who gets credit for it.
    “Military Quotes

    When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the

    Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building’ by George Bush.

    He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of
    its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond
    our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is
    enough to bury those that did not return.’

    It became very quiet in the room.

    Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?’

    A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

    Once again, dead silence.

    A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included
    Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies.
    At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of
    Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone
    was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French
    admiral suddenly complained that, ‘whereas Europeans learn many languages,
    Americans learn only English.’ He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have
    to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’

    Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied ‘Maybe it’s because the
    Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to
    speak German.’

    You could have heard a pin drop!”

    Liked by 4 people

  14. My clocks are changed, except for the ones that will change themselves. I did it first thing this morning, to try to trick myself into adjusting to the new time.

    *******
    DJ – We also started watching NCIS a few years in, and then went back and caught up on the earlier episodes on Netflix. In the first episode, Gibbs was more animated in his personality, and Ducky seemed like he might be kind of a lecher. Tony’s character in the first few seasons was such a jerk! I’m glad they developed the characters more as the years went by.

    Abby was the only one who didn’t change much. Nightingale did not watch the show with us, but she’d seen enough to know who Abby was, and she thought it was ridiculous that a woman who would be in her 40s by the latter years of the show was still wearing that style of clothes, and acting like a little girl at times. I liked Abby, but I could see her point.

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  17. Kizzie, you’re right — Abby really did outgrow that role; she was older (in reality) than her character but even then, it didn’t fit after a while (the pigtails, ‘goth’ costumes and makeup, etc.). Fun character in the earlier years though (and I’d also watched the older episodes to ‘catch up’ when I started watching the show regularly).

    I like her replacement a lot — again, the show seems to do a good job at picking new cast members who are different enough to have their own unique appeal.

    David McCallum amazes me, he’s in his 80s, I’m quite sure. I’m glad he’s still on the show, if only now here and there.

    And Blue Bloods is another good show, interesting to see “Lou Grant” (he’ll always be Lou Grant) in the guest spot last night.

    I don’t think my oven has a clock. I’ll double check but I sure don’t remember seeing one. So who knows what time that would say it is …. I have one of those timer gadgets that I use in the kitchen, they are magnetized and stick onto the refrigerator or on other surfaces. The oven is old, predating when I moved here, so that’ll probably have to be replaced at some point. 😦

    I’m taking the income tax stuff in today, I have a 12:30 appointment. I couldn’t find my car registration slip from last year but turns out I’d filed it under “taxes” like I was supposed to do last year. How about that? I seem to have everything else (though I still have to get the property tax payments straightened out and written down).

    I’ll change the clocks later, I always struggle a bit with this time change, not being much of a morning person anyway. And I have a long meeting I have to cover in person Monday that starts at 9 a.m. — not super early, I know, but it will require an ‘early’ morning for me due to the drive to get there (in heavier morning traffic around and between the ports, hoping one of the bridges isn’t closed — but often there are long lines of trucks you become “stuck” in), parking issues, then a walk to get there after that on top of it all, finding a laptop hookup in the meeting chambers (which is expected to be overflowing and will probably last something like 3 hours with lots of speakers). So I’ll have to get there early to get a seat and get settled in plenty of time. They’ll have a few media-designated seats but those could fill up also.

    Good place to spread that coronavirus, eh?

    The other option is simply to livestream it from home. But it’s a fairly important meeting so, if I can, I think I should actually be there for this one.

    Our forecast now shows rain Tuesday through Friday, every day, and some of it is supposed to be “heavy.” Hoping it materializes for us this time. It’ll be our first real rain of 2020 (and probably the last until late in the year).

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Well, they are off. We found the dog’s shot records so he will have a beauty appt tomorrow before returning. Unless she decides to keep him, of course. Her call.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Heard from my friend this morning (whose younger daughter, 31, is getting married to the guy she’s lived with for the better part of 7 years now); he finally proposed a few weeks ago but apparently now they’re not going to get married until May or June 2021, so they can save more money & plan something of a blowout wedding (that of course, being a good mom, my friend will be contributing to, probably significantly, but they’re not rolling in money either). They’ve chosen a venue, some swanky outdoor place, it’ll probably be a pretty secular (but clearly an expensive) affair.

    Sigh.

    I say, get married after 7 years already, sooner rather than later – sure, make it special, but honestly there’s no need to do a British Royal blow-out style production and spend tens of thousands of dollars.

    But that’s me.

    My friend is of the idea that it’s once-in-a-lifetime, go big. She had a large Catholic wedding (I was maid of honor) that included a full sit-down dinner afterward for 250 guests. But the dinner came late, everyone, frankly, was pretty exhausted by then.

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  21. I have a clock here I still haven’t figured out how to reset from when the power went out. I may just leave all my clocks on the wrong time???!!

    Liked by 2 people

  23. Kizzie,

    Thank you for that. I was going to do that too, but I was reluctant, didn’t think it was appropriate.

    Good to know they’re good too. 🙂

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  25. People who live together then get married after many years make a sham of marriage. I don’t know about other states, but Missouri would recognize a 7 year live-in arrangement as “Common Law” marriage, with all the rights of an official one.

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  27. Happy Saturday, everyone. I used part of this morning to catch up on the posts I’d missed this week. Sorry to hear of the flu in Cheryl’s household.

    Life has gotten dizzyingly (did I just make up a word? — spellcheck seems to think so) busy. Illness in the household, and making up for time lost during those sick periods, complicated the schedule more, and seems to have been our MO for weeks now. It’s hard when you’ve had rotating family members and piano students sick off and on in January and February. So now we’re trying to both finish what’s undone and keep up with current obligations.

    We did get to visit dear granddaughter yesterday. DG’s barely 7 months now, and the last time we’d seen her was when she was barely 5 months. She didn’t know who we were, and was a bit wary of those people who invaded her living room around 10:00 yesterday morning as she sat unsupported on the floor, looking at us like such a big girl.

    It took a little while, but the smiles eventually came. And by 1:00, after her first (brief) nap of the day, she bobbed in her bouncy seat, squealing with delight at Auntie 6th Arrow. Those two just adore each other, and it’s such a joy to see their interactions!

    We were all impressed with DG’s intelligence. At one point during the day, 6th Arrow held DG on her lap while 6th was reading a book 2nd Arrow had loaned to 6th: Where the Red Fern Grows. 6th read silently, but DG decided she wanted the book read out loud, so DG put each hand on the left and right edges of the open book and, looking at the print on the page, “read” out loud.

    Ah ba ah ah ma na ah…

    No tearing the thin pages, this girl. Books are meant to be read aloud, the little one says. 😉 Yes indeed.

    After DG’s daddy got home, he scooped her up in his arms and held her while we all visited. During the conversation, DG discovered that Daddy had an ear on the side of his head.

    A little bit later, lo and behold, she found there was another ear, not in the same place as the first ear. When she discovered the second ear, she immediately put her hand on her dad’s jaw to turn his head and reveal where that other ear had been.

    So neat to see her understanding that things don’t cease to exist when she doesn’t see them. We all enjoyed that lightbulb moment when she seemed to say, Wait a second, I know there was another one of these things just around the corner. 🙂

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  28. Here’s an additional follow-up to a prayer request I’d made last month on behalf of my student who was playing in a school music festival. I think it was Kevin who later asked how the student did, and I reported that I’d heard later that the boy got the highest overall rating that he could acquire — a I (that’s the Roman numeral for 1, in case it’s unclear) on a scale of I to V. I didn’t have any details beyond that, though, as the student forgot to bring to his lessons the judge’s evaluation form.

    The student did bring the form this past week now, and I see that other than getting a 5 out of 10 on his expression (each mini-category is on a 10-point scale), his other score subdivisions were all 1s and 2s. Thus, he received a I (or what some call a “First,” though that’s not a ranking in comparison to other students, this being a festival rather than a competition — any number of students can receive Firsts, or Seconds, or Thirds, or Fourths, or Fifths).

    That might be more detail than most or all of you were looking for 😉 but I thought I’d let you know the extra I found out about his experience that day for anyone who might be interested to know more. The judge wrote extra comments about his fine work with the notes and rhythms, and thanked him for playing.

    Thanks again for your prayers for him. He went into the day feeling confident, despite his last lesson before the festival being rather rough in regards to his performance music. I credit God for the positive experience he had at festival, and I know your prayers were an important part of the equation.

    He’s playing one of those two pieces for an upcoming event, also, along with two different pieces he hasn’t performed yet. That event is on April 4th, and all three of his pieces are going nicely.

    Liked by 2 people

  31. I usually reset all the clocks in the house to DST early in the day, trying to get the family to do everything earlier so we don’t have trouble going to bed early. Since we haven’t had scheduled events on Saturday it doesn’t hurt anything.

    But this year Flyboy is working four overnight shifts a week, starting at 9 PM, so to avoid confusion I’ll have to leave the clocks alone until after he leaves. (Because of the clock change he had an extra-hour shift in November and he’ll have a shortened shift tonight.)

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Regarding NCIS, David McCallum is actually 86. I’m glad they found a reduced role for the character last year to allow the actor a reduced role. It would have been a loss to have the actor retire.

    Yes, they did originally write him a bit lecherous. Did you ever see the JAG episode that served as a pilot the season before NCIS started? Really lecherous, I’m glad they softened that and before long eliminated it.

    Peter, I like Nick Torres for comic relief.

    DJ, I agree the show should go out while it’s still doing well with a nice wrap-up planned in advance. It would be nice to see Tony and Ziva together somehow before the end. Would you like to see some weddings? Gibbs and Sloane, Bishop and Torres (sorry, Peter), Vance and somebody?

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  33. Rkessler never told us about her night.

    Janice, I live to the beat of my stomach. Or when I see heads peeping around the corner I can assume it is meal time. When it is morning ish I get up. When I am tired, I go to bed.

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  34. We are having quite the blizzard here. I don’t think we’ll be going in to church tomorrow, but I sure hope my friend will be able to make it out here in the afternoon. She s dog and house sitting for us and we need to show her the wood furnace and how it works.

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  35. I’ve been under the weather today. Woke up feeling slow around 8:30 (really late for me), did a dry vomit early on but haven’t had that problem since. It’s 60°+ outside so I walked slowly around in the back yard for a short while. The warm sun felt good.

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  36. We are getting snow here but only a spring flurry.
    Take it easy older brother. Rest, water, walk around the yard sounds like just the thing.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. I asked my aunt once why her granddaughter, who had lived with her boyfriend for several years, didn’t just get married–they bought a house together, why wait another year?

    My aunt did not know. From the photos the wedding was beautiful. Unfortunately, my aunt–who had been fighting breast cancer for years–did not attend her well-loved granddaughter’s wedding. She had died three months before.

    I asked my niece a similar question. “Why not just get married now?”

    “We want to enjoy being engaged for a year.”

    I have no idea why.

    At the wedding, guests were betting how long the marriage would last my husband said.

    Appalled, I asked, “did they know you were her uncle????”

    He nodded.

    They’re on month six now. So far so good.

    None of these brides and grooms are believers. I guess I should be grateful they’re married now, with kids. (Other than the newlywed niece).

    Liked by 1 person

  38. I like Torres, too, sorry Peter.

    OK, I’m changing my clocks now, I’m having too hard a time wrapping my mind around the fact that the clock says 4:45 but it’s *really* 5:45 and the night will go fast.

    I have no idea why the couple is waiting, other than to plan the blow-out ceremony that they’ll be able to collect enough money to pay for. My friend has agreed to give the couple $400 — a month! — leading up to the event to help plan/pay for some of it.

    Everyone was worried he’d never propose, so I’d think now that he has, finally, she’d better ink the date soon — within 6 months would be advisable. 🙂

    I did tell my friend that the wedding, no matter how much or little is spent, will be special (and I shared Chas’s story).

    I kind of think Princess Di’s televised wedding helped push (for more recent generations) the glamor of having huge wedding w/all the trappings, the big dress w/a long train, maybe even a horse-drawn carriage? They’re pretty to watch, but really not very sensible for most real people, I’m afraid.

    Liked by 4 people

  39. Dropped the taxes off and met the new guy, who’s in the same building as Chris, my beloved former tax man who died last summer 😦 They’d known each other for about 10 years, he said, and Chris, who had gotten sick (cancer, I presume) a couple times, had been working with him to take over the clientele for a while.

    Anyway, I owe again and will have to change something so this quits happening. 😦

    Liked by 1 person

  40. They’re also trying to get “just the right” venue and most of those, because everyone wants them, are booked long, long in advance. Sheesh. Find a park. Show up. Just do it.

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  41. From my 7:46 (“I did tell my friend that the wedding, no matter how much or little is spent, will be special …” )

    In other words (what I was trying to say), the wedding (any wedding) will be a special occasion, regardless of how big or small it is. You don’t have to pull out all the stops and go broke and wait a year or more; although my friend, the mom, was always enamored of big, fussy weddings and had one herself (which she’d planned for a good year or so) so I think she wants her daughter to have all the bells and whistles like she did.

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  42. uh, oh — tweeted by a colleague just a little while ago, seems a passenger on one of the cruise ships now being held in port in Long Beach (that’s us, right across the harbor) is being tested now for coronavirus. … Results expected in about an hour.

    Cruise industry is going to get slammed before this all ends. Some major economic hits in all kinds of sectors.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Yeah, if you’re already living together, what exactly is the “point” of a year-long engagement?

    Last weekend a young friend from church who married six weeks ago (and moved away) was in town. I asked her so how is married life. She acknowledged that she is surprised to find people are right that you have to be proactive and “work” at having a relationship, but she said she likes being married. “Isn’t it so much better than dating?” I asked.

    “Yes! So much better than being engaged, and than dating.”

    I suppose we have invested courtship itself with a false romance, and marriage with “now you’re back to the real world” that isn’t helpful. The point of engagement is to prepare for marriage, and a couple should already be ready for marriage when they get engaged. So keep the engagement as short as reasonably possible, and then go for the better part: marriage.

    When I was young I had no idea whether I’d ever have a wedding. I wrack my mind in vain to remember whether as a child I ever imagined myself the bride walking down the aisle. By my twenties I was more proasic: wondering if I did or didn’t want to marry (I was more sure about wanting children than about wanting marriage), what kind of man I’d want and need, and what I’d want my wedding to be like. (I decided on a lace dress in my twenties and decided no wedding songs at some point–they always struck me as cheesy. And I decided I wanted a multi-generational wedding.) The wedding seemed romantic and lovely, and I wanted it to be pretty but not gaudy.

    Almost as soon as it was over, I realized the wedding itself meant almost nothing–it was the man I wanted, and the wedding was simply the “bridge” between singleness and marriage. I wanted friends and family to be there, I wanted to look lovely for my man, and I wanted a few photos. But the point of the wedding was getting married, and had I waited a year for my wedding day to have a fancier wedding, that would have been one less year of being married–and that would be a poor trade. If one or more of the partners has to finish school or some obligation or other, or there is a real need to save money, I can see waiting a little longer (but then it’s also better to wait on official engagement). Engagement isn’t the best part, nor is the wedding day–it’s all there for the marriage.

    But then, I waited 44 years for my man, and waiting another year voluntarily would have been a silly sacrifice. Waiting a year to marry might well be taking 10% off our married life, and almost certainly would be taking off at least 5%. Why would anyone do that?

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  45. It’s strange to me, too, that a couple has lived together all this time is planning a huge wedding. Weird, I guess they can plan it together over dinner every night … ? Odd.

    I asked my friend if they’d be moving to a new place after getting married, she said Oh no, they’ve had that apartment a long time and would stay there. Guess he can carry her over the threshold of the same old place when the get home from the big day? hmmm. I don’t get it, really. But living together has become so commonplace I’m sure they’re not the only ones.

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  46. I’ve heard a few stories of people who had lived together for a pretty long time, then finally got married. . .and then broke up within a few months of marrying. Weird. (That happened to a man I worked with years ago, and I’ve read a few other instances of that happening.)

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  47. I heard statistics years ago (on Focus on the Family, I think) that said people who live together before marriage are more likely to get divorced than people who follow traditional customs.

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  48. I also just read that Marco Rubio and another senator are proposing a bill that would keep us on DST all year. Fine with me. I hate the semiannual change. Illinois passed such a bill last year, but the Federal government has to approve it. If that happens, and Rubio’s bill is unsuccessful, then next winter I’ll be living in one time zone and working in another.

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  49. Re living together outside of marriage: it really is rather shocking how times have changed on that, that it is so “normal” today people really don’t even think about it. When we married (2011) and got the men’s tuxes, they got my husband’s address and then turned to me with “Same?” Yet in my lifetime it was something that was done, but discussed discreetly, because it wasn’t seen as a very good thing.

    Yet when one reads classic novels, by Louisa May Alcott for instance, a woman going off with a man to whom she wasn’t married was so great a scandal that it basically left all her siblings unmarriageable! I just finished a book by her in which one character was guilty of deep sin, and I assumed she had been a prostitute. It turns out she had lived with her boyfriend a year (at the end of which, of course, he died). That left her ineligible for marriage, for any sort of job at all (only girls with good moral examples were wanted), and rejected from returning home. It eventually had a happy (?) ending, of course; after years of her doing good deeds and redeeming herself, she was allowed to return to her family home where she could remain a spinster in her brother’s household. But such a difference from today, when marriage is considered something you do eventually (maybe), possibly after buying a house, owning three pets, and having two children together.

    Honestly, it really seems like it is more important to have “the wedding” than the marriage. Even if it ends in divorce, you had your big day, and maybe you wouldn’t bother at all with the wedding if it wasn’t for the party.

    One of my nephews has been living with his girlfriend for 12 or 13 years now; initially, he was just renting a room from her, and making sure people knew they weren’t having sex (though I wondered, even at the time, what they considered “sex” and how long even a pretense would go on). When my sister lost her husband, I thought someday one of these young people will die, and it will only be “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” who died, with not even the honor of being that beloved’s widow. They’ve been together twice as long as my husband and I have, and living together 50% or so longer than we have been married, but they haven’t even had an anniversary yet. They’re still just playing house. (And my nephew, raised in a Christian home, has sunk into depression and no longer leaves the house much. That may or may not have a connection.)

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  50. And now our house sitter, who just returned from Israel, is self isolating for two weeks. I hope she can find a mask to wear to our house tomorrow to be shown the ropes. I sure don’t want to bring any sickness to my dad.

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  51. You would have thought it was a full moon. Began with an OD passed out in the floorboard of a car which presented challenges in getting them out. Almost every pt who was truly sick was a transfer. And we were full all night. I did not leave my desk for the first 7 hrs of my shift, being on the phone with every facility in the southern half of the state numerous ti.

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  52. I’ve been on the phone & texting most of the night, now there’s a cruise ship in our port that failed to leave as scheduled tonight, apparently a crew member had been exposed to coronavirus on an earlier cruise & there was a requirement to have him tested; it delayed everything so much that passengers were sent off to hotels with full reimbursements for the cruise that wouldn’t happen, apparently; another large cruise ship arrives early tomorrow morning but hearing that 900 people have canceled their trips on that one.

    The cruise industry for now is going to be dead (in the water, I wanted to add); the ships, typically carrying thousands, are floating germ factories as it is. And now, who wants to risk being quarantined on one of those for days or weeks?

    Big economic hits from all of this, whether it’s an overreaction or not — it’s still taking its toll.

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  53. Stupid me.
    I was up and shaved before It occurred to me that I had already corrected for the time. The clock is correct. My mind is mixed up.
    And I don’t understand any of this living together before deciding to get married thing.
    I would have been kicked out if I even thought about it.

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  54. Sorry Kevin,

    But my spelling is an acceptable option….

    I checked before I posted. 🙂

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

    “Daylight saving time (DST), also daylight savings time or daylight time (United States and Canada) and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks during warmer months so that darkness falls later each day according to the clock. The typical implementation of DST is to set clocks forward by one hour in the spring (“spring forward”) and set clocks back by one hour in autumn (“fall back”) to return to standard time.[1][2″

    —————

    “As explained by Richard Meade in the English Journal of the (American) National Council of Teachers of English, the form daylight savings time (with an “s”) was already in 1978 much more common than the older form daylight saving time in American English (“the change has been virtually accomplished”). Nevertheless, even dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster’s, American Heritage, and Oxford, which describe actual usage instead of prescribing outdated usage (and therefore also list the newer form), still list the older form first. This is because the older form is still very common in print and preferred by many editors. (“Although daylight saving time is considered correct, daylight savings time (with an “s”) is commonly used.”)[161] The first two words are sometimes hyphenated (daylight-saving(s) time). Merriam-Webster’s also lists the forms daylight saving (without “time”), daylight savings (without “time”), and daylight time.[162] The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style explains the development and current situation as follows: “Although the singular form daylight saving time is the original one, dating from the early 20th century—and is preferred by some usage critics—the plural form is now extremely common in AmE. […] The rise of daylight savings time appears to have resulted from the avoidance of a miscue: when saving is used, readers might puzzle momentarily over whether saving is a gerund (the saving of daylight) or a participle (the time for saving). […] Using savings as the adjective—as in savings account or savings bond—makes perfect sense. More than that, it ought to be accepted as the better form.”[163]”

    ————–

    And now you know “the rest of the story…”

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  58. When we did our Nile cruise at the time of the SARs epidemic, the cruise ship only had about eighteen tourists on it. For a boat designed to carry one hundred and twenty. Three of their ships were in dry dock so they were happy to have us. We did not get sick. But I do not think I would want to go out there now, more because of motion sickness than anything. But, if I was on a quarantined ship, it would be with a balcony as I don’t think I would go without one. And I pretty much self quarantine on those anyway so it might not affect me.

    Husband enjoys cruising and his sister enjoys paying for his cruises so she has somebody to talk to as well as their dad and step mom. Husband does not know it but several of the sons have gotten up an idea to take him cruising in October, I believe. It will be interesting to see if that comes through or not, if the illness will have run its course or resurges next fall. Shhhh, don’t tell him.

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  59. Chas, for a young woman, sex before marriage brought a lot of risk (scandal, pregnancy) with no protection (a man who would care for her), and society said a very firm no. I do think the judgment was actually too harsh–with repentance, there needs to be forgiveness and the possibility of a fresh start. But it was also a very strong protection for women and children that society did not accept casually claiming a woman you didn’t marry.

    Then the birth control pill came along and offered freedom, because taken correctly it is fairly reliable (though actually a dangerous drug with horrid side effects that would receive a lot more bad press if it wasn’t so “useful” to culture today). But it isn’t women who benefit from a culture in which sex has no guidelines except “consent.” It isn’t anyone who benefits, really, but women especially lose. And we ended up with more than a generation of women who now have very low maternal instincts, if any, want only to be as much like men as possible (with men being less like men to allow women a better advantage in the process), and family life is all but gone. Many who do still have children have them almost as little hobbies on the side.

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  60. chas, you outsmarted yourself with the clocks

    Me, I’m in my usual stupor with this time change. Could not get to sleep at a reasonable hour last night, did not get up in time to get the dogs out (so a mess to clean up) and I’m stumbling around here …

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  61. Last night my husband came back to our bed (he’s been sleeping on the couch, afraid one or the other of us would get the other sick if we had different things; and I’ve missed his presence), and for the first time in several days I didn’t take cold medicine at bedtime. I was afraid it might give me a bad night’s sleep, but I didn’t cough much yesterday and thought it worth an attempt.

    I went to bed a bit after midnight, woke up a bit after 9:00. (I am not sure whether the “after midnight” was old time or new time, since I don’t remember what clock I was judging by. So I slept either close to eight hours or close to nine hours, not waking up once as far as I know–very rare for me.) I got up, used the bathroom and drank some water and juice, and lay back down–and woke up after 11:00. That answers the question of whether I’m going to church this morning, which I hadn’t totally ruled out. I’m very glad I got a substitute for my kids’ Sunday school class. I didn’t think I was the best teacher for the story of the Resurrection, coming in pale and half dead to teach lively “juniors” and maybe doing enough talking it got me to coughing!

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  62. Our SS lesson this morning was on Romans 1:18f. The issue of our culture permitting a presidential run for an openly homosexual man came up. The consensus is that our culture, (because of that and other reasons) has passed the stop sign going too fast to notice.
    Looks bad for this, & especially the next, generation.

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  63. It seems to me that those who live together before marriage and then have a big wedding are people who love big parties. They see a wedding as a great excuse to get all fancy and give a nod to tradition, but sometimes to even poke fun at the tradition by wearing camo and ugly boots with the fancy dress. In a sense, for some, it might be similar to a Halloween party where everyone dresses in costume. It is an activity for bored unbelievers to show off wealth and be irreverent.

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  64. We had a wonderful service this a.m. and afterward I went to my prayer group. We only had three ladies praying today. We covered a lot of ground in our prayers especially about COVID-19. It was a sweet time in the throne room.

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  65. One of our Pastors was ordained during the service this morning. It truly was a moving and sweet time in fellowship.
    I have attended a couple of secular weddings of couples who had been living together. It is more of a conundrum when it happens to be professing believing couples who live together and throw a blow out wedding. I am actually facing a decision whether or not to attend such a union this summer. 😞
    When our wayward daughter married she wanted a big wedding party. She had lied to us about her living situation. We found out however and simply explained that she had not chosen to go the “traditional” path and therefore the “traditional” part of parents financing such an event would not be her reality. There is more to the story but in the end it was her now husband who was miffed and not her so much….did I mention he does not work, is not willing to work and…well I shall stop there. Needless to say we weigh our decisions before our Lord and ask Him for direction and trust that He will show us the way….

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  66. Weddings: Third son and his wife had a later wedding because they were planning it when the military said, once she graduates, she will be an officer and he will not so that will be fraterinization and a no no. So they went to the JP in about December and followed with their wedding in May or so.
    Daughter and her guy had the wedding all planned but decided to go to the JP a couple weeks early to take the pressure off.
    Fourth daughter had planned to marry son and had booked the place. She could not get a refund so decided to go with that with her real husband. When they got preg in boot camp, they went to the JP. Then, when she was pregnant with the follow up twins, headed to their ceremony. Though the emergency csection came up, but they managed the ceremony. It was because she did not want to lose all the money she had paid for the venue that would not be reimbursed, and they wanted family and friends together. It was small but nice.
    Eighth son is planning his wedding in August. I do not know when the baby is due.
    We have not helped finance any of them, though we supported them all for getting married. We would have prefered marriage before baby but they are all doing well.

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  68. Well I successfully changed all of the clocks. I even got the one that had been off for a month done correctly. Not at all clear on how to do it.

    Our pastor has been teaching through the beatitudes. Today was Matt. 5:27-30 on sexual purity. He was very clear and said that Jesus didn’t leave us any leeway. Sexual purity is a requirement. okay, I am not saying this right, but his sermon was so strong and so clear.

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  69. ‘Anonymous’ is clearly mumsee. 🙂

    For my friend, a big Catholic wedding was something of a lifelong dream for her (she came from an Irish-Catholic family, one of her aunts was a nun who taught college classes at St. Mary’s in LA & was a special assistant to Mahony at the time he was archbishop); but my friend also continues to be quite devout, so I think she’s trying to replicate the big Catholic wedding she had minus the “Catholic” part (her older daughter married a Muslim, which was an odd ceremony I attended). This girl has strayed from the faith as well (she and her sister both attended Catholic schools all their lives; boyfriend was raised Methodist but seems to not be a believer at all now). So it’ll probably be a pretty secular, church-free affair.

    The couple are planning to finance most of the costs themselves, which is as it should be considering the circumstances and the fact that they’re both in their 30s and have good teaching jobs. But they came to my friend and her husband this past weekend to ask for some “help” with it all. My friend isn’t the type who can say no when it comes to her girls, whom she adores and has always doted on.

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  70. Muslim ceremony, BTW, was part Muslim but led by a woman who appeared and sounded to be more new age in her orientation. Just kind of a strange hybrid affair. The bride, my friend’s older daughter, had to keep her eyes cast downward through it all by tradition (the couple were seated up front wearing traditional Bangladesh wedding clothing & facing the guests).

    They’d actually married secretly a couple years earlier but both worked for the city of LA where it was not allowed to be married and working in the same department (which they were, at the zoo). Once that circumstance changed, they held the public ceremony; it was all very modest, held at a rented restaurant banquet room.

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  71. So I think it’s been hard for my friend that neither of her daughters had the big church wedding that she’d treasured so much in her life. She’s making the best of it by at least agreeing to “go big” when it comes to the party envisioned by her younger daughter. My friend loves planning, it’s really her “thing,” and she’ll be heavily involved in all of the activities putting it together, I’m sure.

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  73. In a reverse situation, a friend told me of a couple whom she and her husband were counseling. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other waiting for the year-long engagement. So my friends went away for the weekend with the couple and they were married by a JP.

    Passion spent, they returned to their respective apartments and school and didn’t tell anyone about the wedding.

    They had their big wedding a year later with family and friends none the wiser— and without sinning before God in the lead up to the big day since they were already married.

    My friend and I are both pragmatists. It struck me as a good solution.

    Go ahead and tear it apart. 😉

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  76. Did I mention this is the day that eighteen year old joined the Catholic church? I think. Difficult to get the exact story from the bits and pieces she adds.

    Sounds like twelve is very much enjoying her position of mother’s helper. She asked to stay when twenty three left. She is having fun. I believe it is fun for twenty two as well. They have many commonalities. Both are interested in science, both love horses and both love the babies. Should be a good growing time for them both.

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  77. Judgement on those who ‘did it’s before marriage was far too harsh in former years. Not just the mother, but any child born to such a union was forever stigmatized, even if the parents later married, as a child born illegitimately could not inheirit – in Dickens’ ‘Bleak House’, the first person narrator, a girl born illegitimately, is told by her legalistic aunt, “Your mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers”, typical of a not uncommon attitude. That harsh judgement of blaming the innocent for the guilty, led to the hiding away of pregnancies out of wedlock, often in abusive homes for unwed mothers (several such homes have recently been shown to have concealed infant deaths, with the grisly discovery of infant remains buried on the premises of former homes) and then, eventually, to abortion being considered the way out of such a “disgrace”.

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  78. Did I mention that thirteen, without twelve year old to entertain him, offered to help with crafts at VBS this summer? A great guy leads it and has for years. He is the one who employs a lot of young people, and most of my teenagers got their big start in work by working for him. He has a heart for the children and teaching them about the Lord. Good time ahead for son. May even work his way into a job.

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  79. I think I told you before. We had a large church wedding.
    After the church service, Dr. Ellis mentioned to the church that there would be a wedding immediately after the service. Everyone was welcome to stay. Hundreds did. It was a short wedding, but the marriage lasted almost 63 years now.
    We only had one born alive. He had three, and now it is eight and counting (Middle GD is pregnant again.)

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  80. My brother contacted our third cousin who lives in northern Italy.

    “People around where they are living are losing their minds. Stores are empty of everything imaginable. Her husband was traveling and is trying to get home, but travel is being restricted. Says the reaction has been really scary.”

    Another brother attended a party where the hostess had hired a doctor to take the temperature of all the guests.

    Here in my neighborhood, otherwise sane people are demanding to know which hospital is housing the people with coronavirus.

    “Why do you need to know?” I genuinely asked.

    No answer.

    We have three hospitals. Three known sufferers. What do you think?

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  82. You got me, AJ. I was going off the US government language, and numerous articles that claim “Savings” is incorrect. But I accept your correction. 🙂

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  83. The sermon at church was just about over when I heard some strange noise in church. I was wondering if someone was snoring (it happens) but wasn’t sure if that was it or it was something else. Suddenly one of the woman at church looks back and comes over to the man in the pew in front of me. She starts talking to him and so I stand up to see what is happening and realize he is out. Both of us are trying to wake him and nothing is happening. The chaplain asks if there is a problem and one of the members who is a retired EMT comes over. We manage to lay him down and he has no heartbeat. Then he comes to, but keeps insisting he is at home. By that time 911 was called, so we kept watched over him, while the benediction is given. I went downstairs when the experts came to give them all room. I heard he lost consciousness once more. The ER could find no reason for what happened and sent him home. He had had pneumonia and been the hospital a couple of weeks ago.

    We had several visitors. I told someone we should maybe mention that we don’t do resurrections every Sunday in Lent. Wouldn’t want them to worry. 😉

    We were all thanking the Lord he was okay. He is in his mid-eighties. All in all, it would not be a bad way to die.

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  84. I understand the skepticism towards those who want a nice wedding after living together, but I would give them some credit for finally “doing the right thing” by marrying.

    *******
    Kathaleena’s story reminds me of something that happened many years ago at my old church, and this may give you pause to wonder. Towards or at the end of the service one Sunday, an elderly man had a heart attack, and seemed dead (or close to it). 911 had been called, and as they waited, people were asked to leave quietly. One lady, Joy, felt a “message in tongues” welling up inside of her, but thought it was inappropriate at that time. However, she felt that she could not leave without giving the message, that the Holy Spirit was pressing her to do so. So, she spoke out in tongues, having no idea why, and probably feeling embarrassed.

    The man’s wife – and only she – heard the words come out in English, assuring her that it was not yet time for her husband to die, and to trust God in this. (In fact, later, she was surprised to hear that Joy had not spoken in English.)

    If this weren’t someone I knew personally, I would be skeptical of the story, as I’m sure many of you will be. But I knew the lady, and others who witnessed this, and they were honest people.

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  85. Kizzie, I agree, getting married is a very good thing. She and her mom were getting a little antsy with the situation as it was. I know her mom was not happy with the living-together arrangement from the start, but as someone else here said, once children are grown, they have their own decisions to make – and parents love them either way.

    My personal issue is more with a big wedding with all the trappings (and an overly long engagement) when a couple has been together for a very long time already (and living together as man and wife for many of those years). Seems like it might call for a different, more modest approach or plan, but that’s me.

    Big weddings are very popular, I realize.

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  86. But it also strikes me that the big expense, which will partly fall on her parents, is unnecessary? Maybe I’m just a big-wedding scrooge. 🙂 I like no-fuss simplicity.

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  87. DJ – I guess it depends on how long they’ve been living together. I agree with you about people who have already been doing that for a long time.

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  88. My friend already is talking about picking up a couple more pre-dawn tutoring classes for Chinese students to earn some extra money for all of this — but she’s already knocking herself out with that schedule, living on about 5 hours of sleep every day/night; she shouldn’t have to work above and beyond what she’s able (and I don’t think her daughter would expect her to, either, but knowing my friend she’ll do something like that).

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  89. They’ve been a couple for 7 years, not sure when they moved in together but at least a few years ago. And it was the boyfriend who always stalled on the question of marriage, demanding that she finish college (it took her a while) and get a better paying job (she was a nanny) first.

    I’ve met him a few times, nice guy, seems stable, but I kind of already don’t like him for dragging her through all that, making her “prove” herself before he’d be willing to propose after so many years. And they requested the meeting with her parents together to broach the subject of financial help for the ceremony they wanted.

    Why not scale back your vision a bit so it’s not going to be hardship for anyone?

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  90. Honestly, in that circumstance I’d say get married “quietly” and then have a wedding reception. But again, the wedding is the closest thing most girls have to being a princess, and she’s always dreamed of it and “must have it.” I hope the trend moves toward simplicity one of these days, and it can’t really move toward more elaborate. I’m pretty sure the average engagement time is more than a year even among Christians, and that is needless temptation and a needless waiting period with lots of stress, and the wrong focus.

    If I had the power to change things, I’d move toward premarital counseling taking place before engagement, then a short engagement (one to four months, say) to wrap up concerns of singleness (sell a house, prepare to move, get to know each other on a different level) and a pretty but simple wedding and a hospitable reception. When I married in 2011 the average wedding cost something like $29,000 and that didn’t include the honeymoon. Well, obviously there are extravagant weddings that move the dial up a lot, but mine cost about 10% of that and had all the standard wedding elements (except a sit-down meal and alcohol). Of course we didn’t have to pay for a venue, but I just can’t imagine paying a year’s income for a one-day celebration that doesn’t matter nearly as much as anyone thinks it does. It’s past time for someone to start a trend that it’s OK to have potato chips and dip at the reception, and a pretty cake and ice cream, and have a pretty dress but one that costs as much under $1,000 as you can get. This “Dad, I know you said the dress budget is $3,000, but I just have to have this $7,000 dress. Please?” is crazy.

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  91. Latest on the virus:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/grand-princess-cruise-ship-passengers-face-coronavirus-screenings-on-arrival-in-oakland/ar-BB10UEFP

    Coronavirus fight enters new phase as ship prepares to dock in California

    By Anita Chabria, Laura King, Andrew J. Campa and Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times
    ____________________

    … “We’re past the point of containment,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration during the first two years of President Donald Trump’s administration, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

    “We have to implement broad mitigation strategies. The next two weeks are really going to change the complexion in this country. We’ll get through this, but it’s going to be a hard period. We’re looking at two months, probably, of difficulty,” Gottlieb said.

    U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said that shifting to a mitigation phase means that communities will see more cases and need to start thinking about whether it makes sense to cancel large gatherings, close schools and make it more feasible for employees to work from home. …
    _________________________

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